This is sadly not something new. The crackdown has been going on for at least 18 months. Another sad fact is that many in the LGBT community campaigned to have the President elected in the belief that he would ease the restrictions on gay rights.

It is not only religious fundamentalists behind the LGBT attacks. As I wrote at the start of last year -

fountainhall wrote:Last year the Minister for Research, Technology and Education also took on the LGBT counselling service at one of the capital's universities by accusing it of corrupting the nation's youth. But there was worse to come. The Minister for Defence called the LGBT movement a modern form of warfare, suggesting that western nations were using gays to subvert the nation's sovereignty.

What is especially depressing about the situation in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the southern Philippines is there never seemed to be an anti-LGBT movement. It is only since the Iranian revolution and the fall of the Shah almost 40 years ago that rulers and politicians began to worry: will I be next? Fear of the expansion of Islamic fundamentalism struck hard. So Muslim clerics began to be given more freedom to spread Islam's more extreme views and these have now taken hold. It didn't help that most of the leadership in those lovely countries was corrupt and desperate to have religious allies in their camps. By far the worst now, apart from Aceh where Sharia law is in force, is tiny, wealthy Brunei which has recently adopted full Sharia law.

The Sultan's grotesque wealth and the way he lavishly dishes it out to favourites, his 1,788-room palace filled with every luxury and a large harem, his custom-designed 747-400 with its own throne room, his brother Prince Jafri whose business dealings lost the state well over $10 billion and who is accused of misappropriating another $40 billion of state funds, and whose eldest son is allegedly gay, is clearly worried. 35-year old heir apparent Prince Azim is unmarried and spends money faster than it crashes over the Victoria Falls. He once sent a 747 to deliver a US$3 million necklace to Mariah Carey. Lurid photos are available on the internet of him with male strippers and in an SM scene. Were Azim is found guilty of being gay and sentenced to be stoned to death, would the Sultan throw the first stone? What a joke!

The situation in Indonesia is getting a great deal worse with parliament set to pass sweeping powers to criminalise sex outside marriage and gay sex across the country. At present such sex is only illegal in Aceh Province.

in the last decade a conservative strain of Islam, quietly tolerated by presidents past and present, has gained sway, with conservative Muslim leaders and groups intimidating lawmakers, holding mass rallies in Jakarta and targeting prominent Christian and LGBT minorities.

Then just yesterday parliamentarians passed a law giving themselves the power to obstruct corruption investigations and even launch investigations against their critics. Hundreds of thousands submitted petitions against the proposed law - to no avail.

Professor Tim Lindsey, the director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the University of Melbourne, said the revisions constituted a "very dramatic accrual of powers".

"It's aiming to create a DPR that is able to resist criticism, and stifle criticism, and which protects its members from prosecution," he said.

The law change comes as DPR members continue to wage war with Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission, which has led numerous high-profile investigations into politicians.